by Stephan Wul
‘Do not laugh, First Councillor, we just do not know!”
‘We must not exaggerate.’
‘Really? What about the Klud incident?’
The First Councillor raised his arms towards the ceiling:
‘That old story! It has not even been proved the two Traags were attacked by Oms. Personally I find it hard to believe!’
The Master searched his gown’s pocket: ‘I have proofs’, he said. ‘Look at what one of my colleagues from the South Continent gave me.’
He held out a photoframe to the First Councillor and commented:
‘The place was out of the way. We only found the bodies six days later in an advanced state of decomposition. It was impossible to get anything from the first corpse, the one in the ditch. But two stadia away the Traag found collapsed on the road had suffered less. Look at this!’ it is?’
‘The right side, at the twenty third rib. Nice Om bite, is it not?’
2
On Continent A’s coastline, a small port abandoned long ago by the Traags harboured a strange underground city.
Inside a network of drains and old sewers a hidden city had taken hold, with its streets, housing units and public buildings. An Om city, of three million Oms!
Feverish activity reigned. Small commando units continually appeared at its gates, bringing back from the Traags a great number of assorted packages: tins of food, scrap metal, tools and info headsets. All was put down in a jumble and as each unit commander reported his losses other Oms sorted the spoils, rolling tins down corridors and carefully carrying headsets to the study rooms.
In the city centre, a disused main sewer had been partitioned into work chambers for official departments. In one of the chambers a tall Om with a blond beard was looking gravely at the graphs adorning the walls. He pointed at one.
‘The food stocks are still rising’, he said. ‘Twenty thousand weights! I’ve already made clear my decision to stop stocking. It’s time and energy wasted. We’ve already got enough to last for a year after the exodus!’
‘Calm down Terr’, said a middle-aged black Om seated in front of him. ‘Your orders haven’t had time to reach everywhere. The units are not all equipped with teleboxes.’
i did say…’
i know, Valiant is doing his best, but the factory in question is located one hundred and fifty stadia from here. To get there, one needs to cross two stadia of open ground, and as there are no moving bridges in the area it’s really hard getting source material. I’ve posted half the telebox fitters to Workshop E to keep them busy.’
Terr jotted down something in a notebook. He then turned a few pages, frowning.
‘Not too many losses yesterday?’
‘Average. Still no news from the Klud operation?’
‘Let’s hope they succeed! Without these parts we’ll never be able to leave. The three machines would only be worthless scrap heaps.’
‘Have faith in Valiant. He put his best Oms on the job.’
A light on top of a box flickered. Terr pressed a switch:
‘Yes?’
‘Vail here’, a voice said.
Terr and Charcoal smiled.
‘Well?’ said Terr
‘The parts are coming, Terr. I’m touching one as I’m speaking. The other two are on their way, somewhere near Path 4. We’ve practically got them.’
‘Well done’, cheered Terr. ‘Bring the first one to the workshops as fast as you can!’
‘Thanks to the travelling line it’ll be there in a few minutes.’
in one piece, I hope.’
‘My men are padding it. Don’t worry.’
Terr hit Charcoal triumphantly in the ribs. He put away his notebook in his gown pocket and said:
‘First test in the docks in three days, my old Char!
Char put his hand on his shoulder.
‘Beware, son. You’re pushing yourself too hard. You hardly sleep; you eat in a great rush and…’
‘Fve never felt better.’
A commotion filtered from next door. Someone knocked.
‘Yes!’
An Om with a parched face appeared.
‘Terr’, he said, ‘the Old Lady isn’t feeling well. She’s asking for you.’
Terr and Char exchanged meaningful looks. They left the room without a word and headed for a circulating corridor. Terr pressed a priority button and waited a minute as red lights lit up at every junction. He then sat down astride the cart’s saddle. Char sat behind him.
They rolled down the slope faster and faster. At the ninth milistadia Terr slammed on the brakes, jamming the cart on the ascending cogs before rushing into an adjacent corridor. Having saluted on his way some of the city’s renowned faces he entered the Old Lady’s home.
She was lying down on a comfort mattress.Her legs were hidden beneath a blanket. She made a weak sign with her hand.
‘Leave me… alone with him’, she whispered.
Char put a finger to his lips and gently led the two doctors outside.
Terr knelt at the old black Om’s bedside. He took her hands and found them freezing cold. The smell of medicine was floating around her.
‘Young one’, she said, ‘I’ll not see the Exodus’.
‘Don’t speak’, whispered Terr, ‘you’re tiring yourself’.
She gave a small broken laugh. A cough shook her thin shoulders beneath her gown. She pointed at a flask on a table. Terr made her drink a few drops and lifted her head a little. She soon calmed down.
‘Listen… I wanted to see you before… I went. Yes… yes! I’m not scared, you know! I wanted to tell you that… I really like you, young one. Don’t make such a face. Look at me, I’m laughing… We all go. One day it’ll be your turn, in a long time, I hope.’
She wagged her head.
it’s not very clever, what I’m saying. I’m nothing but an old fool. You others, thanks… to the Traags’ headsets, you’re much more clever than me. Even the little ones… little Oms can now read all the Traag words. It’s thanks to you. As far as intelligence goes, you’ve got some. But… at the beginning, when you were still little, all we achieved was thanks to me. Because I was… energetic, wasn’t that so?’
Terr nodded in approval. She was clenching her old nervy fist on the blanket.
‘Me, energy, you… (She slowly tapped his forehead with her finger)… the head. So, I wanted to tell you… with your head, and if I give you my energy, you will succeed with the Exodus. The two are needed. I know you’ve already got lots of energy, but I’m also giving you mine. I won’t be here later on. It’s you who’s going to command everything… In fact you’ve already been commanding lately. The others listen to you, don’t they?’
She panted for a while not saying anything, and then her hands gripped Terr’s like claws.
‘Can you feel it? Can you feel it, young one? The energy flowing from my arms? It’s going through yours. I’m giving it to you. It’s leaving me. Can you feel it? You…’
Her head felt heavier on the fabric. Her crimson lips remained frozen in a smile.
‘Old Lady?’ said Terr.
He gently freed his warm hands from the dead lady’s cold fingers. He shut her eyes and stayed hunched over her for a while. He then walked slowly towards the door.
Everyone in the adjacent room was standing. Terr waved to them that it was all over. Without looking behind him he went out, followed by Char whose hps where quivering with emotion.
In the large corridor a crowd had gathered, having heard vague rumours. All were looking at Terr as he appeared at the top of the stairs.
‘The Old Lady has died’, he announced in a voice lacking in resonance.
The crowd froze, stunned. The Old Lady had always been the symbol of their unity, their hopes and their destiny. As Terr appeared to stand down, a female
Om voice cried out:
‘Long live the Aedile!’
This triggered off and explosion of cheering.
‘Terr! O
ur Aedile! Long live the Oms’ chief! Three cheers for the Exodus!’
Terr raised his hand to hold back the commotion, with little success at first. A nervous tic made his chin tremble beneath his blond beard.
Someone came out of the Old Lady’s quarters, elbowed their way to be near the new Aedile and present him a telebox. Seeing the small machine the crowd quietened down gradually.
‘Free Oms’, said Terr, ‘the Old Lady died pressing me for a successful Exodus. She’s been fighting for us for days and days. And then, she fought against death…’
More than just the crowd that was there, he could feel his voice addressing thousands of Oms leant over their receptors throughout the city, and further away to sentries in advanced posts lining the tracks. Further still, his speech was going to stir pillage units at work in Traag cities.
***
Somewhere around Klud, a Traag child was playing at recording parasites from a telebox. He was putting them through a plurigraph and suddenly realized that some noises sounded like words. Traag words, as if said at full speed and distorted by animal throats, were ringing in his eardrums.
Surprised and curious, the Traag child pushed away the wire from the plurigraph and played back slowly the strange sounds: ‘Free Oms’, the machine said with a twang, ‘the Old Lady is dead…’
The rest got lost in a storm of crackling. Isolated words filtered through occasionally:
‘… struggle… Exodus… Oms…’
The Traag child stood up, happily flapping his membranes.
‘Father’, he cried out, ‘there are Oms talking in the plurigraph!’
‘I have forbidden you from playing with this device’, said a voice coming from the next room.
The Traag child left the room and could be heard insisting:
‘I made an Om voice with the plurigraph. It was saying: ‘free Oms, the Old Lady has died…’
Taking advantage of being left on his own, a luxury Om who had been lying on his cushion jumped on the plurigraph and pulled off the wire. Hiding the broken wire, he was back to his lazy stance within seconds and closed his eyes.
‘What folly!’ said the Traag father coming into the room. It does not mean a thing… There, look, you broke the wire. Play with something else!’
He took the device and pushed the child into the nature room. The little Traag dived into the pool and forgot all about it.
3
Bending over his telebox, Char made some notes, said ‘thank you’ and threw a piece of paper on Terr’s table.
He read it quickly, frowning.
‘We run this danger every day’, he said at last. All clear communication must be forbidden. See to it the Centre 10 people draft a code.’
it’ll slow everything down.’
‘I know. But what if all our telecommunications had been picked up by adult Traags? They’d have been quick to find us. We’d have failed so close to our goal.’
He stood up and placed a hand on Char’s shoulder.
‘We have an advantage over the Traags: speed. The difference in scale pushed us to distort their language in a way they can’t follow the rhythm of our words. And we drop most of their consonants. If it wasn’t for small advantages like this we’d have lost the fight long ago.’
Char was still thinking.
‘Establish a code and learn it. In the meantime, do away with all telecommunications! It’ll slow our effort’s momentum by at least three days!’
‘Never mind. We can spare that. I just spoke of speed. Remember it takes a quarter of a lustrum for a Traag to reach adult age. It only takes a year for an Om!’
He thought about his own memories and said:
‘When I left the Traags, my young mistress Tiwa was a little girl. She’s still a young girl today. She only has basic education. Me, I’m a blond bearded Om. I’ve had six children. I studied mathematics, know ygamography inside out, and I’ve got enough knowledge to speak to our engineers. I developed temporary economics rules for the Oms, and laid the foundations for Economy 2 which we’ll use on the Wild Continent where we want to settle. Always speed. We live at another pace and that’s our main asset.’
He cast a fond look on the graphs lining the walls and continued:
in a year we founded this city, organized intelligence networks, increased the birth-rate, trained specialists, accumulated fantastic equipment… We’re coming on in leaps and bounds. During that time the Traags have only managed to vote for the small deomisation law we successfully outstripped. The Exodus will happen before that law is fully applied. I’ll say it again: we must lose those three days so as not to ruin the rest. Besides, telecommunications will soon be only for spies. There’ll be no need for raids anymore. We’ve already got all we need to go ahead with the Exodus and apply Economy 2. Soon we’ll turn in on ourselves within this city. Telecables will be enough.’
He pressed a button on the telebox and said: ‘Workshops!’
The device purred a little, gave out a few clicks before a voice could be heard.
‘This is Central Workshop; who’s speaking?’
‘The Aedile. How are you getting on with device 3?
‘Hold on, I’ll put you through to room 3.’
‘Workshop 3 Foreman speaking!’
‘Aedile speaking. What about the plate?’
‘We’re just piercing the last hole, Aedile. In one hour we’ll be fit the hull.’
‘Is your drill worn?’
‘It’ll do. It’d take us longer to change it.’
‘Ok, I’ll come down and have a look.’
Terr switched off the call and turned towards Char.
‘See to it, for the code!’
Char assented and moved his hand onto his telebox. Terr left, jumped on a cart and slid down towards the workshops.
He went through the mechanical warehouses and the smaller precision workshops before reaching the assembly rooms. The two completed ships were sitting imposingly in the first rooms: two enormous vessels made of parts stolen from Traag factories. Lines of Oms were loading the cargo needed for the Exodus.
The sound of metal beating against metal came out of room 3, mixed in with the echo of Oms puffing with effort. Terr entered the room.
A square wound gaped at the side of the third vessel, showing glass organs and nodes of multicoloured wires. Further away a bent plate was wedged to the ground with plastic brackets. Perched on scaffolding, a hundred or so Oms were holding up a huge brace as
another hundred workers turned endlessly inside the badger wheels driving the drill. Sweat was pouring by the gallon, dripping onto the hot plate and boiling amongst the metal turnings. Oil canisters arrived continually, carried hand to hand from the warehouses. A dozen herculean Oms, their muscles varnished by the heat, were pouring the lubricant on the drill bit.
Two females with their hair tied back were getting through male work. Terr got closer.
‘What are they doing here?’ he asked the room foreman who was rushing to meet him.
‘They’re sterile’, replied the Om. ‘They asked to serve in another way.’
Terr got out of the way of a canister pushed by sturdy arms. Walking to the vessel, he climbed the ladder leading up to the hatch. Followed by the engineer, he got into the bowels of the ship through a sloping plane. As he went past his fingers caressed lovingly the smooth partition walls.
His steps led him to the map room, behind the cockpit. As he entered a small group of students got up.
‘Long live the Aedile!’
‘Enough’, said Terr. ‘Sit down and carry on with your work’.
He leant over a map, asked a few precise questions, the answers bouncing back at him as he smiled towards the instructing officer.
‘My word’, he said, ‘these youngsters know more than I do!’
The officer gestured half-understanding, half-respectful, as if to say “each to his job, yours being to command”.
At that moment the lights flickered three times and
went out.
‘A power failure!’ someone said.
But the lights flickered another three times before giving way to the night.
An alert!’ said Terr. ‘Don’t move! Does anyone have a flashlight for me?’
A cold object was slipped into his hand. He pressed the switch and a beam of light swept across the room.
‘Stick to the orders’, he said briefly to his motionless companions. ‘Room Foreman, guide me outside the workshops.’
Work had stopped in Workshop 3. Perched on beams or spread wherever the alert had unexpectedly caught them, the Oms stayed still in the stifling heat from the flaming metal.
Terr crossed the site quickly, left the foreman and ran along the corridors leading to the Surveillance Centre. On his way he came across silent shadows. He was stopped at the entrance to the Centre.
‘Aedile!’ said Terr lighting up his face.
The guard let him in. Terr leapt towards the stairwell leading to the main watchtower laid out strategically high above the Traag city’s ruins.
Deadening the sound of his steps, he entered the booth and switched his light off. Valiant and Char were already there with a few watchmen. Valiant pointed at the large expanse of sand with only a few grass tufts. A sphere had landed half a stadia from the city. One, two… five gigantic Traags were nearby.
The tallest was perched on a dune and was contemplating the ocean. Another, sprawled on the sand, was nibbling blissfully at the content of a tin. The remaining three were leaning over the sphere’s engine. The heavy murmur of their conversation could be heard from the watchtower.
‘They’ve broken down’, whispered Char.
Terr slowly shook his head.
‘I don’t like it’, he said.
Seeking an explanation, his companions looked at him. But he kept quiet, attentively watching the giant batrachians’ every move.
After a few long hours the Traags got back into their ship which took off straightaway. Within a few seconds the sphere disappeared past the horizon.
‘End of the alert!’ ordered Terr.